Seams are sometimes either required or desirable in a sewn garment, in sewn upholstery, and in other sewn articles. Seams include joint seams, deck seams, and French seams and can serve both a utilitarian or decorative purpose. Deck seams and French seams are joint seams with additional decorative topstitching. While the stitching that makes up a joint seam is often hidden on the inside or back of a sewn article, decorative topstitching is stitching on a sewn article that is visible from the top or outside of that article. “Decorative,” however, does not mean that the stitching has no utilitarian purpose. In various embodiments, decorative topstitching results in a stronger or otherwise more desirable seam. The seams can be visible or hidden, and the material used to hold the seams together—often but not always sewing thread—can itself be visible or hidden, highlighted, or camouflaged through the use of fabric and thread color combinations, for example.
As consumer requirements and governmental and other regulations change over time, causing new utilitarian or decorative features to become popular or even mandatory, there are opportunities to use new sewing technologies that heretofore have not been developed. One example of a changing consumer requirement or trend is the increased popularity of heating and/or cooling systems in automobile seating—systems designed to keep drivers and/or passengers more comfortable. One example of a changing government or industry regulation is the increasingly stringent automobile safety standards that cause some manufacturers to install air bags directly on or inside the seat and on or inside the surrounding structure of their vehicles. In many cases, installing heaters, coolers, supplemental restraint systems (i.e. air bags), motors, gears, relays, wiring, connectors and other mechanical and electronic components inside automobile seats requires the use of automobile seat covers that permit access inside the seat cover for repair or replacement of these and other internal components.
Fasteners containing “zipper” elements, also known as “slide fasteners,” can be used in seat cover design to provide access inside the seat. It can be desirable to combine the decorative look of the aforementioned deck seam or French seam with the performance and convenience of a slide fastener to connect parts of an automobile seat cover and conceal the slide fastener behind the seam. However, combining a slide fastener with decorative topstitching like used in a deck seam or a French seam can be difficult because the close proximity of the slide fastener to the seam makes it difficult to move the seam through a sewing machine.